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Sunday, September 22, 2013

Sunday Review: Breakheart Pass (1975)

Breakheart
Pass
starts out ambiguous, continues to only grow in complexity and oblique
motivations until finally all is revealed in the end right in time for the big
shoot-out. It may sound like a slight, but when the story comes courtesy of thriller-writer
extraordinaire Alistair MacLean (he of such subterfuge and intrigue classics
like Where Eagles Dare and The Guns of Navarone) and features a
solid cast including the likes of Charles Bronson, Ed Lauter, Ben Johnson and
Richard Crenna, it should come as no surprise that all parties deliver an
engaging, thoroughly satisfying adventure picture with twists and turns aplenty
- a classic MacLean story made novel considering the author lays one of his
patented espionage plots in 1870’s Nevada.

Bronson plays John
Deacon, a wanted man being transported by US Marshall Pearce (Ben Johnson)
aboard a train that allows no other passengers other than the small troop of
soldiers and the governor of Nevada himself, played by Richard Crenna. The
motives of all aboard are dubious at first, but it’s soon revealed that the
soldiers are being sent as reinforcements to a fort suffering an outbreak of
plague. Of course, this being an Alastair MacLean story, not all is as it
appears, and soon enough a string of mysterious murders begin taking place
aboard the train - leading all aboard to wonder if they’ll all make to the fort
alive.

Coming with solid
direction from Tom Gries, Breakheart Pass
builds slowly over its ninety-five minute runtime - favoring tension and
suspense over nonstop action. The slow build works wonderfully in the film’s
favor, as all the subsequent reveals and turns of the plot come as pleasant and
entertaining surprises (even though their explanations wind up being more than
a little far-fetched in the end). All of it is capably shouldered by Bronson
himself, who plays the ambiguity of his character to a tee. He can play the
macho tough guy in his sleep, but the real fun here is fun trying to figure out
just who’s side Bronson’s character is on throughout. The tension gathers
nicely up until the action finally breaks out at the end. Considering said action
comes courtesy of Yakima Canutt, it proves to be well worth the wait. The
stuntman-turned-second unit director (who perfected the motion picture fight
scene to an art) ably stages the shoot-outs and stuntwork, including an
impressive fist-fight aboard a moving train and a thrilling cavalry charge at
the end.

They don’t make them
like Charles Bronson anymore, and so too they don’t make them like Breakheart Pass.